The sharing of the mobile networks belonging to Telefónica, branded “O2” in the U.K. and Vodafone can go ahead, the U.K. Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom regulator has ruled. The two telco giants will now create a 50-50 joint venture called “Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure” (CTI), according to Total Telecom.

Using this shared infrastructure, Vodafone and Telefónica aim to provide indoor 2G, 3G and, subject to the outcome of Ofcom’s forthcoming spectrum auction, 4G coverage to 98% of the U.K. population by 2015—two years ahead of the telco regulator’s 2017 deadline. To achieve this, the companies will divide the country in half, with each one taking responsibility for the design, management and maintenance of radio equipment and local transmission networks in its designated regions.

It is a deal which brings together two areas of mobile technology which have not perhaps taken off as fast as their supporters might have hoped, advertising and augmented reality (AR). The theory is that the combination will give a boost to both.

Giga Om describes the agreement between the Spain-based telecommunications giant Telefónica and Aurasma, which was created by the British data crunching company Autonomy before its takeover by HP.

BERLIN—Telefónica’s ambitious global start-up incubator program, Wayra, has announced the nine successful start-ups that will join its six-month incubator program.

Presenting the awards at the end of the Campus Party in Berlin was EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who quipped: “Never have I been with so many talented people,” before quickly adding “that’s not a judgment about Brussels.”

But while Berlin is seen as the heart of Germany’s start-up scene, the academy is based in Munich, the traditional focus of the IT industry.

BERLIN — To survive in the future, companies must understand the technology of today, according to the chief executive of Telefónica Europe. That’s why the Spanish telecommunications giant is playing host to 10,000 hackers, geeks, and other technologists in Berlin’s iconic Tempelhof Airport this week.

Telefónica has worked with the Campus Party for at least 16 years, mainly in Latin America. This is the first time it’s been held in Europe outside of Spain. For Telefónica Europe’s José María Álvarez-Pallete, that association has a simple aim: If you want to survive in the future, you have to understand the changes in technology today.

“Our business, telecoms, is evolving so rapidly, and is based around technology,” said Mr. Álvarez-Pallete. “Innovation happens all around you, and happening in the most unexpected places and among people who are getting younger and younger.”

Attendees at the Telefónica Campus Party in Berlin’s Templehof airport.

BERLIN—Tempelhof was the scene of the Berlin Airlift, the Allies Cold War lifeline that kept what was then West Berlin alive for almost a year when, in June 1948, Stalin attempted to cut it off and deny the city a future.

Today the airport is hosting a different crowd, but one that is also looking to secure Berlin’s future as a European, or even global, technology hub.

Telefónica’s Campus Party is being held in a non-Spanish speaking European country for the first time. This vast area has been handed over to 10,000 geeks who have taken residency here for five days, 24 hours a day. Equipped with computers and other toys, they camp on-site writing code, building apps or just hanging out.

Tuenti has been a success story little-known outside its native Spain. Even a year ago the social network was invitation only, claiming 11 million members and apparently responsible for 15% of all the Internet traffic in Spain.

Now Tuenti, majority-owned by the Spain-headquartered telecommunications giant Telefönica, is being rolled out globally with beta versions of Android and BlackBerry apps and a mobile messaging app. Apple iOS and Windows Phone apps are due in the next few weeks.

The social network will is now no longer invitation-only and available in multiple languages. These reflect Telefónica’s operations which cover 25 countries across Europe and Latin America.

MADRID—The limited-liability company was one of the great inventions of the modern era, limiting the exposure of founders to that which they put in. It is almost axiomatic that such legal protection is a necessity of modern business. After all, who would risk the life of entrepreneurship if, should their venture fail, they would become personally liable.

Against that it may come as a surprise that Spain, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, has any entrepreneurs at all, for while Spain has a form of limited liability, as Gary Stewart found out, the limitations aren’t all that limited. Mr. Stewart is now the director of Telefónica’s Wayra incubator academy in Madrid, a project to help start-ups, but had been an entrepreneur. To his horror, his bank account was one day mysteriously emptied.

“In Spain, sometimes it’s really hard to justify creating a start-up. Even if you believe in yourself and your project, it’s probable that your first intent will be a failure. And the Spanish government will hold you personally liable for many of the costs of that failure. In my case, I still remember going to the bank one day and finding that the government had taken literally every cent from my account. I had invested in a real-estate agency that had employed six Spaniards. I’d honestly thought that I’d kept up with all of the company’s tax and social-security obligations. But the government discovered an unpaid fine and held me personally liable. They had no problem leaving me without any resources to pay my rent or to go to the grocery store.”

MADRID—The Wayra program is Telefónica’s incubator scheme to support and cultivate the next generation of start ups. No one can accuse the Spanish telco giant of doing things by half-measures. Since its inception in Latin America, Wayra has reviewed over 12,000 business plans and is on course to be the world’s largest incubator program.

Its Madrid academy, housed in the very heart of the beast—Telefónica’s imposing, if somewhat incongruous, headquarters on Madrid’s Gran Via, opened its doors to show what the academy had achieved.

Telefónica’s Wayra accelerator program is beginning to produce some interesting businesses. Evomote, for instance, plans to put a personalized TV guide on your smartphone.

The Spanish startup’s initial intention had been to develop an app which would turn a smartphone into a TV remote control. That objective has become subsidiary to creating a recommendation engine to help viewers find something worth watching amongst hundreds of TV channels.

It is an area that is not short of competitors such as Zeebox and BuddyTV. But Evomote has an interesting, and potentially more profitable, extra string to its bow which is a cloud platform that will allow operators to integrate the discovery service into their set-top boxes or to use Evomote’s own hardware.

For years, Europe’s cellphone companies reeled subscribers in with cheap deals on handsets. They would then make their profits from the sale of calls, SMS text messages and other services to customers who were tied to relatively lengthy contracts.

That model is breaking down. Internet-based services are replacing voice and text functions. Regulatory pressure is squeezing roaming profits. And competition across the sector is tough.

In Spain, two of Europe’s largest telcos, Telefónica and Vodafone have stopped subsidizing handsets. In France new entrant Iliad is attracting clients with low-cost services rather than offering cheap cellphones.

About Tech Europe

Tech Europe covers Europe’s technology leaders, their companies, and the people and industries that support them — and their ideas. The blog is edited by Ben Rooney, with contributions from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.